GUOWEI?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

I know it's been rather long since I've last made a meaningful blog post. Well, I gotta confess that I've lost interest in blogging...

(this is actually my first post of 2010, and also a year I'm anticipating for)

It's going to be different tonight though. I'm on cloud nine and simply in a good mood to write. Having a ticking time-bomb off your back is absolutely great, and the feeling's never better knowing you're in a rather secured position with your decision. That aside, let me begin with what I'm really here for:

I was standing by my window, enjoying the night breeze -- as usual during the November to early March period -- and simply thinking about absolutely nothing. Though it's like 4am now, the entire stretch of road here never sleeps. There are constantly cars, taxis and (mostly) trucks/lorries passing by every moment. However, there's always this short period of time where I'd find the stretch of over two kilometers of road empty. That's when the beauty of audio and visual spell their magnificence.

Staring at the reservoir, my eyes couldn't help it but to drown in the water. The lamp surrounding the jogging tracks of the reservoir vaguely reflects and dissolves light on the water surface. That gives a perfect contrast of colours with the night's darkness especially when you slowly lose focus of the reservoir whilst staring at it. It gets even prettier during full-moon. The moonlight spreads itself neatly across the water surface, presenting a calm yet distinct set of water ripples across its path. (I've got a picture of that in my "Bedok Reservoir" album on Facebook, go check it out it's just beautiful.) Another sight I enjoy is the silhouette of trees casted by the moonlight when it's hanging low. They often suggest the "now you see it, now you don't" idea where the branches sway with the wind, hiding and revealing any prominent object behind it. That brings me to the carpark beside it.

Around this hour, the neighbourhood police patrols the area routinely in their usual Toyota patrol car. They made a usual turn into the carpark like always, but came to a rather unusual stop tonight and got out of the car. Although their activity there were blocked by the trees, I could still see them approaching one of the parked vehicles there. From that point, my mind started swirling wildly and rather cheekily -- did they catch a couple hanky panky in the carpark lot? I was uncertain, but that red Honda car did drive out of the carpark after some time. Who knows, the trees blocked the view..

Nevertheless, it's actually a wonder how amazing vegetations are and their importance for the flora and fauna...

I diverted my attention from the carpark. Realising a rather odd squeaky yet dull noise in the midst of silence. I wondered where they came from; was it the usual wasp or beetles flapping their wings against my bedroom walls? Never liked them, they always give me a sense of insecurity -- that itchy feeling as though they might just fly into my ear. But no, the sound didn't come from my bedroom. It definitely came from fifteen stories down. I looked down towards the direction where the sound came from, and indeed there were some rarely-seen-in-a-housing-district-area-in-Singapore-animal circling their flight around a tree -- Bats. It wasn't just one or two of them. There were at least a dozen of them living in that same big tree situated along the driveway of my estate. That could be a family of three generations living together in that one big tree. Apart from the trip into caves of Pahang (which had a dozen multiplied by a few thousand of them), I don't often see groups of bats around here. But imagine, how much wildlife have we destroyed simply by chopping down a few trees here and there to make our all-so genius invention of paper. It's really sad. But in life, I guess only the more dominant species survives...

I don't know about you, but I must be honest I've never liked foreign workers in Singapore. That changed in a way tonight...

Have you ever wondered how neat the lines and arrows are drawn on the roads? Have you ever wondered how do they do it? A template? A sophisticated laser technology marking lines for the painters? Or should I ask have you even notice there are lines and arrows on the roads...

Well, it's none of the above. They use strings, chalks, a measuring tape, some flat rectangular metal plates and a kind of painting trolley thing with fire at the base burning the paint onto the road. That's all, no templates. All by hand and almost free-hand sketching. Guess who these artists are? The Bangladeshi workers we always complain about.

They posses skills that I simply would applaud. I'm sure no Singaporeans would want to be up on the roads at four in the morning perspiring after bending up and down marking the points of these lines and arrows. What would Singapore be like without these foreign workers? There would be a shortage of manpower at our construction sites; our "green city" image wouldn't be as green as it sounds; we'll have sand for roads; our garbage would be uncollected and burnt by the roadside. Which Singaporean would want to commit to these sort of labour? I guess we could really just show them our appreciation by not complaining about their smell on buses and trains. After all, they perspired to make our lives better.

4:05 AM | 0 comments
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